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Lloyd Gumbo Harare Bureau
CABINET has approved the takeover of Chiadzwa diamond fields to be run under the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company after the companies there failed to renew their mining permits.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa, yesterday said the “door is shut” on companies that had been mining in Chiadzwa.

Meanwhile, the minister rejected claims by two newspapers yesterday that there was widespread chaos in Chiadzwa with “hundreds” of looters and fortune seekers overrunning the place.

He said police had arrested just FOUR people for trespassing.

Chidhakwa was speaking at a Press conference in Harare yesterday after touring Chiadzwa earlier in the day.

Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Christopher Mushohwe also attended the briefing.

“We presented a full report to Cabinet yesterday and we had a full discussion of the matters,” he said. “We outlined to Cabinet the steps that now need to be taken going forward in so far as ensuring that the ZCDC is actually activated in the fullest sense of the word.”

He said there was nothing wrong with not renewing licences of diamond mining companies since they had not applied for renewal.

Chidhakwa said the reluctance by the companies to embrace and be part of the ZCDC left the government with no choice but to part ways with them. He insisted that the government’s doors were completely shut on the miners even if they made a U-turn and sought to be part of the consolidated company.

Said Chidhakwa: “I told Cabinet that I had been asked that question (whether the door was completely shut on the companies), and I told Cabinet that I had said ‘yes’. Cabinet said ‘Yes, you’re right in saying no, there’s no door open. Now the language is ZCDC which is 100 percent owned on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe by the government of Zimbabwe.”

He said while the government signed some Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) with several countries, this did not substitute legal requirements in Zimbabwe such as applying for mining permits.

Chidhakwa said before announcing the decision to stop operations, he engaged the Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping to acquaint him with the status of diamond mining.

Some Chinese investors had interests in Jinan and Anjin investments

“The ambassador said to me ‘minister, law is law’. He repeated it not once, not twice but several times and towards the end of the meeting, he said to me ‘law is law’. The law says you must have a licence and so must you have a licence,” Chidhakwa said.

“When he said ‘law is law’, I understood him to say this sovereign country called Zimbabwe has laws and it has the constitutional responsibility and obligation to ensure that the laws are abided by.”

The ousted diamond companies are said to be weighing up suing the government for not renewing their licences. But Chidhakwa said everything was done above board.

He added: “Everybody has a right, even foreigners, to approach the courts. If you’re a miner whose rights have been violated, you take your title to the courts. And I’m not so sure what they’ll take to the courts. An expired mining licence, an expired special grant? I’m not sure.

“I’m not worried because I’ve consulted sufficiently within our legal framework about what we must do or what we can’t do. What we can’t do is to expropriate people’s properties, no we can’t do that. That we’ll be sued for and they’ll win in court. But the act of not extending their licence, I think that they’ll have a problem.”

Chidhakwa said during the tour to Chiadzwa, they received reports from police that there been isolated incidents of illegal miners attempting to gain access into the mining areas.

“We got reports from the commander responsible for the police force there. He told us about two incidences of people who had tried to come into the area and they were immediately arrested by the police. When we got there, the police were holding the four people who had tried to go into the area.”

Chidhakwa said even before the companies were stopped from operating, incidents of illegal miners attempting to gain access were recorded.

He said the government was concerned that Chiadzwa villagers had not benefited from the mining activities in their area after the miners neglected to honour their pledges to put money in the Community Share Ownership Trust.

“We also realised that the message that comes out of Chiadzwa is that the President [Mugabe] showed us a cheque for $1,5 million (but where is it?). You know that matter was extensively discussed in the Parliamentary Committee on Indigenisation,” he said.

Chidhakwa said they would conduct a forensic audit to establish what was happening during the time that the companies were mining.

Mushohwe said the government’s reclamation of the diamond mines was in the national interest.

He implored the media to avoid politicising the decision by the government. “These are regulatory issues. These aren’t political issues. So we don’t expect people to start bringing all sorts of ugly politics into a matter of this nature which is a purely business and regulatory matter,” said Mushowe.

“This is a matter that was agreed upon in Cabinet on Tuesday. This is a government position. So my plea is that we report as honestly and as accurately as has been said here so that we let our people, let the international community judge government’s action on the basis of the information given to you.”